


Lie to Me, Lie with Me

by Foureyedfool



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Alternate Universe - Mental Institution, Angry John, BAMF John Watson, Broken John, Dark John Watson (sort of), Depression, Developing Relationship, Developing Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, Drug Addiction, First Love, First Meetings, First Time, Flashbacks, Grumpy John, Hallucinations, Hospitalization, Hurt/Comfort, John Whump, M/M, Mental Instability, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychiatrist!John, Psychologists & Psychiatrists, Secrets, Sherlock Being Sherlock, Sherlock Hates People, Sherlock Whump, Slow Burn, Switch John, Switch Sherlock, patient!Sherlock
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-05
Updated: 2015-08-05
Packaged: 2018-03-10 15:48:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3295985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Foureyedfool/pseuds/Foureyedfool
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Watson is back from war, broken, bitter, and haunted by the mistakes of his time abroad. He finds himself working at the same shady psychiatric hospital he was employed at before being discharged. Sherlock Holmes is a drug addict whose overbearing, overprotective brother has had him admitted and put under John's care. Sherlock realises right away that John is hiding something and takes it upon himself to discover what it is. Meanwhile, John learns that some secrets cannot be kept without driving a person mad.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case it wasn't obvious, I don't own Sherlock, and I'm making no money off this ;)

John had never liked hospital food. As a matter of fact, when he’d been only thirteen years old, he’d had his appendix removed and had been forced to stay in the hospital for five days, rather than the anticipated-and-average two. The reason was that he kept throwing up his meals, and it wasn’t until they sent him home (even after he had _just_ hurled his lunch) that he started to feel better.

‘Everybody feels better at home,’ his mother had told him, and John had readily agreed.

He didn’t have a home, now. He had a flat that he rented out, but he hadn’t been in it since first returning to London after being discharged from the army. Now, it contained nearly all of his belongings, a layer of dust over the shelves and one of mold in the fridge, and the morbidly-obese, passed-out form of his sister, Harriet, on the sofa.

That was what John assumed, anyway. He was currently sitting at his desk, in his office, with a grimace on his face at the slop that had been placed in front of him.

“Unacceptable,” he said curtly, as he lifted his eyes to stare up at the food service technician who had brought him the tray. “I don’t want my patients eating this. No, _no._ ”

There was no doubt in John’s mind that he was still in ‘military-mode’. He was used to giving orders and used to having those orders  _followed_. When they weren’t, he became frustrated. He took on his Captain’s tone of voice and would repeat what he wanted while he glared at the poor man or woman he was demanding something from.

“I’m just a technician, Doctor Watson,” the woman told him. She was hardly a woman. She was eighteen, nineteen years old, maximum. “But, if you want, I’ll pass on your concerns to—”

John waved his hand, both to make her stop talking and to tell her to leave his office.

“I’ll talk to the Board myself.” John waited for only a second before looking back up at the girl. “Why are you still here?”

Very quickly, the girl gathered up her menus and the nutritional facts sheets before leaving his office, shutting the door softly behind her.

Before anyone else could enter his office and talk to him about some sort of ridiculous proposal involving his patients, John leaned down and retrieved his cane. Gripping the head of it tightly, he limped towards the door and locked it. Every step made his leg ache, so much so that he had to lean his back to the door, gripping the handle while his other hand remained on his cane, and he grit his teeth while hissing in pain.

As John turned back and looked at his office, he realized that he was wrong. He _did_ have a home, and this was it. Lakeside Psychiatric Hospital. His office was his bedroom; the staff locker room was his loo, and the canteen was his kitchen and dining room.

Christ. That meant his patients were his flatmates.

In some ways, the army was better in that regard. Here, several of the patients were loud. They _smelled_. They had strange quirks that made John think twice about getting too close to them, not because he was afraid but because he didn’t want to get involved. He had no desire to talk with them about their imaginary friends or their kingdom made entirely out of chocolate.

In Afghanistan, his bunkmates had smelled. They had smelled like sweat and gunpowder. Like blood. John tried not to get close to them, but it was inevitable. Even though he knew that they could die at any time, he got close to them because it was impossible to not. They were responsible for him, and he was responsible for them.

That being said, he’d done a shit job at keeping them out of harm’s way. He had gone to Afghanistan as a novice and had returned a Captain. Whilst serving, he had gone from working in a medical tent and tending to dying bodies to going to the _battlefield_ and tending to dying bodies.

John had loved it. He’d wanted danger, and he had found it. Holding a gun in his hands was so much more satisfying than a syringe or a bone-saw. He was still saving lives, that had never changed, but he took them, too.

He took more than he saved.

The phone on John’s desk rang suddenly. The shrill, vibrato tone reminded him of the ululating he had heard before an extremist attack. Immediately his heart began racing. He couldn’t breathe—was there air in here? There had been air a moment ago; where had it all _gone?!_

It was hot. The sun was beating down on him, morphing his skin from the tanned colour that Cassie had loved into a white, sticky coating that looked like what was left on his bed sheets at Uni after a girl had stayed over.

Before he’d met Cassie.

John felt in his pockets for his gun. His cane dropped down onto the floor; why the _hell_ did he have a cane on the battlefield? He didn’t need a bloody cane; he needed his gun, he needed his gun and he couldn’t find it, he didn’t have the slightest idea—

Had he left it at base camp?

No…no, surely not. Not him. Not Captain John Watson.

The shrill ululating made John spin around. There was an enemy soldier standing right behind him, and he was going to get shot. The man—or was it a woman? Her voice _was_ awfully shrill—continued making that most horrid of noises, shrieking and screaming, trying (and succeeding) to frighten him.

“Do it!” he shouted, making sure that he was loud enough to be heard over the gunshots and pained cries of men. His eyes darted back and forth to try and find the person making such a racket. “Shoot me!”

It was either that or become a POW again, and John wasn’t going to allow that. He would shoot himself before he spent another three years as their prisoner. It would, possibly, last even longer than it had before.

There was no soldier.

There was no sand.

There was no sun.

The phone on his desk rang once more before it went silent. _Everything_ went silent, save for John’s loud and desperate gulps of breath.

He was in his office, again. No, not _again_ ; he hadn’t ever left. That’s right. He hadn’t been back in Afghanistan. He hadn’t been surrounded by sweltering heat and enemy soldiers. His life wasn’t in any danger. He was exactly where he was meant to be, in this dreadful and drab hospital with patients who needed him.

It was all a bit ironic. John was the psychiatrist, and yet, he felt that his patients were the ones who kept _him_ from going insane.

 

* * *

 

 

“Did—did you know that the average human sheds _forty_ pounds of ssskin over the course of their life?”

Sherlock looked over at his elder brother, the corner of his mouth curled up in a slight smile. Mycroft, as usual, said nothing in reply. At least, he didn’t until Sherlock started touching him. Poking his leg, his side, his protruding stomach.

“ _Did_ you?”

“No,” Mycroft hissed, reaching down so he could wave Sherlock’s hand away from him. He knew that the man was only doing it to irritate him, not that he needed to. Mycroft was already enraged. ‘Irritated’ didn’t even come close.

“And t-tapewormss in humans—”

“ _Stop_ ,” Mycroft interrupted, firmly. He held up his hand and met Sherlock’s glassy, unfocused gaze. “You need to _stop_ , Sherlock. I do not wish to hear about shed skin, tapeworms, or any of the other disgusting things that you fill your mind with. You’ve already got enough filth in your _body_ , there is no need to also ruin your mind.”

Sherlock had to think for a moment. His mind was hazy, only giving him the most obscure facts that he had read in a rather amusing science book he had bought on a whim—that is, while high—nearly a month ago. It had been sitting there, on his coffee table, but he had always chosen the drugs over reading. Who in their right mind wouldn’t?

“I am obviously _not_ ruining my—my mind,” Sherlock said, in what he viewed to be the start of a truly clever comeback. “If I were doing so, I—I wouldn’t know all these _facts_.”

Mycroft turned his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. He pretended to be incredibly interested in the scenery that was passing them by, although it was nothing but bare trees and a gray sky.  Mycroft decided that it fit his mood. He wasn’t one to be influenced by the way that he felt, but this was different. This was involving Sherlock, and himself, and it was a rather large deal, what he was doing. He didn’t think that Sherlock would ever forgive him for it, but given what the nature of their relationship already was, he felt that worse things could happen.

Sherlock, too, looked out his own window. He had other things that he wanted to say to Mycroft. He shifted uncomfortably beneath his seatbelt, squirming restlessly as he reached up to undo the buttons of his jacket. It was _hot_ in the car. He was sweating from head to toe and legitimately felt as if he were melting.

The two brothers sat in silence for the next twenty minutes, although Sherlock would occasionally ask Mycroft a variation of ‘are we there yet?’ or ‘where are we even going?’ Mycroft never answered. By this point, he had pulled his phone out of his pocket and was back to working, rather than trying to distract himself with the jagged trees. The only constant sound in the car was Sherlock’s fingers and feet tapping, his fingers against his leg and his feet against the car floor. The man was restless.

Cocaine would do that to a person.

 

* * *

 

 

The sound of a knock on his office door made John sigh. He hoped that he did it quietly, so as to avoid the person on the other side of the door hearing it. He couldn’t manage to even fake a smile as he limped over to it and pulled it open after unlocking it.

“Yes?”

Standing outside the door was Artie Fischer. He stared at John with a raised eyebrow. John stared right back. The man’s massive frame didn’t intimidate John, not when he was in reality like he was now. Fischer, more than anybody, had seen John’s downward spiral. He had seen what sort of doctor John was before being deployed, and he saw what he was like now.

Crippled. Apathetic. Gray-headed. Wrinkled. Unenthused.

John had been filled with passion for medicine when he had worked at Lakeside before. He had loved his field; he had cared deeply for his patients. He still did care for them, but he was limited in what he could do. As soon as he had returned to his position, he had been saddled with more patients than any of the other psychiatrists had. Anderson and Donovan; they each only had eleven. Stamford had fifteen. Hooper had fifteen. John had been given _thirty_.

Some of them were his old patients. Marcus Hoffmann, he had been under John’s care (for crippling agoraphobia and paranoia) before John had left for Afghanistan nearly four years ago. Joy MacDonald was being treated for severe depression with suicidal intent and attempt. She had been in and out of Lakeside twice since he’d been gone, and was now being treated for the long-term. Francis Lloyd was a seventy-two year old woman who wrapped her arms around herself and rocked back and forth while alternating between mumbling and screaming.

There were twenty-seven others, and despite his training, despite everything that he had been through in his life, John felt that each one of them was more challenging than the last.

“You’ve got a new patient,” Fischer was saying, peering down at the green folder he held in his hand. “You’ve been requested by name.”

Requested? That wasn’t entirely surprising. John had been blessed with a good reputation at Lakeside. He’d had patients come to him because their family members had friends who had spoken highly of him because of their own experiences. It was word of mouth advertisement at his finest. Still, John had been back for only three days, and there hadn’t been any visiting days his patients could have used to give him a glowing report. That, and he hadn’t done anything to warrant it.

“Why the hell would someone _request_ me?” he asked, taking the file out of Fischer’s hand. Sherlock Holmes. Thirty-five years old. Severe drug addiction, antisocial tendencies, found living in his own filth and admitted to not leaving his flat in over a month. John shook his head and shut the file, holding it back out to Fischer. “I’m not taking him. I’ve already got more patients than any other doctor here. Give him to Gupta; she’s got the most experience treating addicts.”

 Fischer didn’t take the file from him. Instead, he put his hands in his pockets and shook his head.

“Sorry, Doctor Watson. Whoever it is that’s bringing him here made a huge donation to the hospital. Like, two hundred grand huge.” Fischer shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “You can imagine why the Board wants to stay on his good side. He promised he’d give more if he’s happy with the bloke’s treatment.”

John’s arm remained suspended, the folder still in his hand. It was starting to feel heavy, like he was holding an anvil rather than a few sheets of paper. The weight moved up his arm to his shoulders, then his neck, and finally his head.

Thirty-one patients.

“So because they can’t manage their money, they’re giving me yet _another_ person to be responsible for,” John growled, staring down at the chart once more so that he could read the notes from the last psychiatrist Sherlock had seen. ‘Prone to aggression’. ‘Uncooperative’. ‘Insulting’. ‘Unfocused’.

As unpleasant as all of those sounded, there was one that stood out to John: ‘Capable of figuring out one’s innermost secrets’.

That alone was enough to make John want to take him, if the other things weren’t enough. He had never been one to back down from a challenge, but every man had their breaking point, and John was quite certain that he was close to reaching his.

“It won’t be all bad,” Fischer was saying. “We’re all due to get rises.”

John didn’t need a rise. He lived out of a duffle bag in his office. He never, _ever_ left the hospital. He made enough money between his pension and his salary to pay for the rent at Harry’s flat and to pay for her phone bill. He had food delivered to her once a week. He was, slowly but surely, even paying off her gambling debts for her. The money that was left (although there wasn’t much of it) went into a savings account.

He would have taken a pay _cut_ if it meant that he could have five less patients.

John kept all of his thoughts to himself, as he normally did. He tucked the file beneath his arm and followed behind Fischer as they walked to the admittance wing. The clicking of his cane on the white tile floor had him gritting his teeth. He hated the sound of it. He hated the way that he hunched over like Quasimodo doing his best impression of a penguin. He was only thirty-eight years old, but he had gray hair and more lines on his face than his grandfather, God rest his soul, had. His grandfather hadn’t even _used_ a cane.

Fischer kept glancing over at John. He would look at John’s face and look immediately away, only to do it again and again and _again_ , until John eventually hissed, “ _What_?”

“Nothing, Doctor,” the orderly sputtered. “Sorry. It’s just—well, when I was walking towards your office, I heard you shouting. You okay?”

John had fought incredibly hard to keep his PTSD hidden. He knew that he had it, of course he did. He was a bloody psychiatrist. He was able to diagnose himself easily enough, but the problem arose when it came to _treating_ himself. John had overseen the care of veterans’. In addition to patching up injuries in the desert, he had been able to talk the other soldiers down when they were mid-panic attack or distraught with the fact that they had just taken their first life. He had made a difference over there, and here, all he did was listen to his patients’ inane ramblings.

He supposed that most people felt that way. There was a reason why it was difficult to adjust to civilian life, and frankly, John hadn’t. He had gone straight from Afghanistan to a hospital in Germany, where he spent three weeks being treated for injuries that were both external and internal. He’d seen therapists. He had been thanked by the hospital staff for his service; Brigadier Bradley Shaw had paid him a personal visit.

It had made John so nervous that his physician had to rush in and give him a low-dose sedative to calm him down. Shaw had thought John’s heart was racing because he was in awe of meeting him; John had been edgy—terrified—because he was certain that he had been discovered.

Nobody could _ever_ find out what had happened. What he had done.

John was so caught up in his own thoughts that he hadn’t even remembered to respond to Fischer’s question. It was too late to answer now, though, because they both heard the manic cries of John’s newest patient at the same time.

“Mycroft! M-Mycroft you can’t do _this_! You bastard, g-get me _out of here_!”

 John had heard this before. The families of mentally unstable patients tricked them into coming. They would outright lie to them until it was too late. It was surprisingly easy to declare someone as being ‘unstable’, especially if they were a danger to themselves or to others.

Given what Sherlock Holmes was doing, he most certainly was.

Two orderlies were gripping the man’s arms. The first thing that John noticed about him was that his body appeared physically frail, but he was still fighting so hard against the orderlies that John guessed he was currently high. Nobody with such a lacking amount of muscle and fat could fight like that. There were heavy, black bags under Sherlock’s eyes; he hadn’t even been _sleeping_. As John drew closer, he could see that the man’s pupils were blown wide, bordered by blood-red sclerae.

Definitely high. Cocaine or methamphetamine, most likely. Sherlock’s file hadn’t said exactly what he was addicted to, just ‘drugs’.

As John watched, Sherlock squeezed the orderlies’ arms under his own. He used the leverage to kick one in the crotch with his long leg, and as the man crumpled, Sherlock leaned in closer to the other and bit down on his ear, jerking his head in what could only be described as an attempt to tear away the cartilage.

“Jesus,” Fischer cursed. He quickly moved away from John towards Sherlock, reaching into his pocket as he did so for a one-milligram syringe of Midazolam. Fischer plunged it into Sherlock’s neck as the orderly began to howl. Blood was starting to drip from both his ear and Sherlock’s mouth. His ear was still intact, even as Fischer and the first orderly who had been kicked right in the bollocks started to pull Sherlock away. A fourth arrived with a stretcher. As Sherlock’s body began to go limp and his snarls of anger grew quiet, they lowered him onto it and whisked him away.

John was left standing there, alone, staring. He jumped in surprise when he heard someone clearing their throat behind them, and he turned around to see a tall, large man with a crooked nose staring down at him. He was dressed immaculately in a navy suit, leaning on an umbrella and sneering at John, although the doctor couldn’t tell if the man was disgusted or if it was a poor attempt at a smile.

“Doctor Watson. Meet Sherlock Holmes.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this took a while. Haha. I've got several things that I'm writing, as well as some personal stuff I'm going through, like everyone else, so it just got pushed to the back-burner. Anyway, enjoy, and feedback is always appreciated :)

John was, generally, a perceptive man. He hadn’t always been, but over the past twenty years or so, ever since he had started studying medicine, he’d had to become more discerning. However, as Poe wrote, ‘Believe nothing you hear, and only one-half that you see.’ That was as accurate a statement as any in the field of psychiatry.

What if the doctors believed everything their patients told them? It would be downright comical. John would have truly thought that there were monsters crawling around in the air vents, that the end of the world was fast upon them—today! Oh, wait, it didn’t happen…tomorrow, then!—or that he was being followed by aliens who were going to stick a gigantic metal probe up his arse and read his entire life story and his every waking thought.

If John believed everything that he heard from his patients, then he would have believed that the tall man staring at him right now was doing just that. Reading his life story, reading his thoughts. Despite being fully clothed in a warm hospital, John felt naked and cold. He decided right away that he didn’t like this man. There was something about him that made John want to—cower.

Captain John Watson didn’t cower. At least, he hadn’t used to. He had gone to war with a ‘fuck ‘em all’ attitude, and he had emerged from it asking God why he was still alive.

Penance. That was why. God had kept him alive to make him live out the rest of his days in complete and utter misery.

And why not? He deserved it. He deserved it for all those _horrible_ things he had done.

John jumped when the man standing in front of him cleared his throat. The brunet was staring at him, one eyebrow lifted in a way that John instantly took to mean, ‘Are you quite finished yet?’

That was a ridiculous thought. It wasn’t as if the man knew what he was _thinking_ about. That would be impossible.

“Hard for me to meet him when he’s already been taken away, isn’t it?” John asked, his voice hardened and detached as he stared up at the other. The voice in his head—that is, his subconscious mind, _John_ wasn’t one of the crazy ones in this hospital (not the sort that heard voices, anyway)—told him to keep his guard up.

Don’t let anything show.

John extended his hand towards the man while his other clenched his cane tighter. His leg was throbbing, as it always did when he stood on it for too long. Walking down the corridors to visit with his patients was hell in and of itself. He had been offered a wheelchair before, but John adamantly refused every time. As undignified as the cane was, at least he could say that he still stood on his own two feet. More or less.

“Doctor Watson. Like you said. You know me, obviously. Can’t say that I know you, seeing as how you haven’t introduced yourself. I’m assuming you’re the rich bastard who made the donation in exchange for my services?”

Damn. He shouldn’t have said ‘bastard’. The word had just slipped right out, as had his sarcasm.

The man only smiled politely, not bothering to accept John’s offered hand. It was the same scowling grin that made John wonder what, exactly, was going through the man’s mind. He was a bloody psychiatrist. He should have been able to _know_. He had been a doctor for fifteen years; he knew what was expected of him. He knew how to do his job. He was a damn good physician, one of the best he knew, and yet, this man was someone he just couldn’t read.

John hated it. It made him feel off-guard. On-edge. The man was an enemy soldier and Captain John Watson felt the need to retreat.

“I suppose I’ve no choice but to introduce myself as well,” the man drawled, leaning on his cane. “My name is Mycroft Holmes. Sherlock is my delinquent younger brother.” Mycroft took a step closer to John, then another, and stared down his nose at the doctor. John didn’t know why, but he felt like he was being not only summed-up, but looked down upon, both literally and figuratively.

Mycroft obviously thought himself to be superior to everyone in the bloody hospital, even his own brother. _Especially_ his own brother, probably. John had experienced that elder-sibling arrogance with Harry. John was a doctor, a former soldier. He saved lives (And took them. So, so many of them.) And yet, Harry fancied herself to be the better person.

John hadn’t agreed with that before the war. Now, he was having second thoughts. However, Mycroft Holmes didn’t need to know about that.

“Mr. Holmes, right. So you’re the one who—”

“Requested you, yes,” Mycroft interrupted. It didn’t surprise John in the least that this man, who seemed so self-righteous and arrogant, would interrupt him.  It _annoyed_ him, yes, but it didn’t surprise him. John wasn’t used to taking orders, really. He had been sent to Afghanistan as a Captain. After a few months, they had put him in charge of his own section. It was a small company, but it was his nonetheless. A dozen men directly under John’s command, who was directly under Major James Sholto’s.

The two men had quickly developed a friendship with one another. They admired one another’s intelligence and sarcastic sense of humour. John looked up to Sholto as any soldier would look up to their commanding officer, if only for the desire of having their advanced rank, and Sholto respected and trusted John enough to give him a liberal amount of control.

What a mistake _that_ had turned out to be.

John hadn’t spoken to Sholto since, but he did wonder, from time to time, if the Major now regretted his decision. John wouldn’t have blamed him if he did.

“The leg must be hurting you. Sit down.”

John blinked, realizing that Mycroft was talking to _him_ as he pointed with the tip of his umbrella at John’s weakened leg, then waved it towards a white, wooden chair that had suddenly appeared. John hadn’t even noticed that someone had brought it out; he had been so caught up in his own thoughts about Sholto and those boys that had died under the Major’s lead. Mycroft obviously had no qualms about drawing attention to such a sore (literally) subject as his leg, and John found himself glaring up at the other, his fingers squeezing his cane harder than before.

“I don’t want to sit down.”

John watched Mycroft carefully to see his reaction. He didn’t look like the type of man who enjoyed being told ‘no’, whether it was to sitting down or accepting his little brother as a patient. Surprise? No, that wasn’t it. It was more like curiosity. Intrigue. It made John feel as if this man—who was, evidently, the one in control between the two of them—had expected him to more than likely sit, but also kept himself aware of the possibility that he wouldn’t. Mycroft seemed the sort of man to keep in mind every possibility.

That didn’t bode well.

After shrugging his wide shoulders, Mycroft moved around John and took the seat himself. He crossed one leg over the other as if to say, ‘I can do this, pain-free, and you can’t.’ At least, that was how John took it to be meant. Mockingly. Degradingly.

“I only wish to assure you,” Mycroft began, “that you will be fairly compensated for taking my brother’s care upon yourself. Beyond your original salary, of course. All I ask in return is that you give me information regarding his treatment. Nothing indiscreet, nothing you’d feel…uncomfortable with. Just tell me what he’s up to. How he’s getting on.”

John opened his mouth in order to protest (after all, there _did_ exist such a thing as doctor-patient confidentiality), but Mycroft held up his hand and continued speaking.

“You were appalled by the quality of the food being given to your patients and yourself. You also have a sister to whom you provide all of the basic necessities, no? The money would solve both of those problems.”

Every word Mycroft spoke served to make John’s body feel colder and colder. Not only colder but stiffer, too, as if he were literally being frozen over from the inside out. He was grasping his cane so hard that his knuckles had turned white; his hand was actually shaking from his firm grip. For a moment, all he was able to do was stare at the other man in the hopes that Mycroft would continue—tell him how he knew about Harry, or how he had heard _already_ that John didn’t want to feed his patients the congealed gruel that the canteen offered.

Mycroft did no such thing.

This man knew too much. If he knew about Harry, there was the chance that he knew more. Did he know about Sholto? Cassie? Mano Gai? A man this wealthy, he was sure to have connections, wasn’t he? What if that was why he was really here? What if it had nothing to do with Sherlock and had everything to do with what he had done?

No amount of penance would help him, then.

“How the _hell_ do you know that?” God help him, John couldn’t stop himself from asking. Mycroft would either answer the question honestly or he wouldn’t, but John had to at _least_ be able to give himself credit for trying to find out.

Mycroft, with his fingers laced and his hands resting on the top of his umbrella, smiled amiably.

“You are going to be my brother’s keeper for the next several months, Doctor Watson. I would be remiss if I did not find out about you everything there is to know.”

John couldn’t tell if that was a warning that Mycroft was going to research him even further, a threat that he already had done and knew everything John was hiding, or an innocent statement saying that all he had really intended to do was get Sherlock the best care that he possibly could. It could have been all of them; it could have been none. John didn’t _know_.

John shook his head and shifted his weight from his leg to his cane; his other leg was burning, but he was _not_ going to sit down. Not in front of this man.

“No.”

“No?”

“You said I would be compensated beyond my original salary for giving you information about your brother’s treatment plan. I’m saying no.”

Mycroft looked undeterred. “But I haven’t mentioned a figure.”

Again, John shook his head. He was beginning to feel less frightened and more angry that this man would barge into his workplace and start telling him things about his own private life, trying to boss him about and demean him just from a single glance. If Sherlock was anything like his brother, things wouldn’t go well for either of them.

“Don’t bother. I’m not—I’m not interested. Between this and my pension, I make enough to scrape by.” Now it was John’s turn to offer a fake smile in Mycroft’s direction. “But you probably already know that, don’t you?”

Mycroft had been about to speak again, but he paused when John’s mobile beeped. Without hesitation, the doctor got it out of his pocket and read over the short message; one of his patients was having a fit on the floor below and his authorization was needed to inject them with H&P, haloperidol plus promethazine. It was _so_ much more convenient to use their hospital-issued mobile phones rather than futzing about with pagers, and John quickly sent a text back approving the dosage. It was for Lucille Mandez, a violent schizophrenic who needed to be sedated nearly every other day.

“I hope I’m not distracting you.”

It was clear by Mycroft’s tone of voice that he was unaccustomed to being ignored. Even though the problem was already handled, John looked up at Mycroft and lifted his free hand in surrender, shrugging.

“Not distracting me at all,” John said nonchalantly, returning his phone to his pocket. He focused his gaze on Mycroft again, the grin returning to his face. “However, I’m afraid I _will_ have to be cutting this short. Duty calls. I’m sure you know how that feels. Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Holmes. I’m sure we’ll meet again.”

John turned and began to limp down the corridor leading back to his office. He was moving slowly and had to grit his teeth tightly together to keep from whimpering due to the pain in his leg. Every step he took made him feel like someone was scraping a knife right up his femur. One of the therapist seemed to think it may have been a psychosomatic injury, as the wound itself didn’t seem bad enough to cause the amount of pain John described, but he knew it was real. He just _knew_.

He had PTSD, yes, but he wasn’t crazy. He wasn’t imagining things that weren’t there.

Not at the moment, anyway.

Once John was back in his office, he locked the door behind him, just as he had earlier. Sometimes he didn’t think it was worth it, seeing as how it made him have to stand up and walk over to the door to let nurses or orderlies, or whoever it may be, inside, but then he reminded himself of how mortifying it would be to be caught right in the middle of a panic attack. The physical pain was excruciating, but at least it didn’t last. All sorts of problems could rise if it was found out that he had his own struggles with his mental health. He would be told that he wasn’t capable of dealing with his patients, even though he _was_. Wasn’t he? He’d had people commend him on his treatment plans. Patients and their families told him that he was the best doctor they’d ever had.

But then…most of that was before he’d been sent to Afghanistan. He wasn’t nearly as hands-on as he had once been, nor was he as cheerful. John did try to be as professional as he could be (although cursing at Mycroft Holmes and calling him a ‘rich bastard’ hadn’t done him any favors), and he _did_ want the best for those under his care. He just also wanted to be left alone, which was not a good quality for a doctor, especially a psychiatrist.

John spent the remainder of the evening reviewing his patients’ files. He looked at their caloric intake for the day, whether or not they took their prescribed medication. He read over the therapists’ notes from their sessions (he didn’t consider it a breach of confidentiality; after all, the psychologists and the psychiatrists worked together in order to provide the best possible care to their patients, however, the psychiatrists—John especially—didn’t have the time to have individual counseling sessions with each and every one of their patients on a daily basis).

For the most part, it had been a day like any other. Some patients had good days, some had bad. Some didn’t feel anything either way. Some relapsed, some had breakthroughs. John woke up miserable and, when he finally unfurled his sleeping bag and lowered himself down onto the floor, his cane and mobile right beside him, he went to sleep miserable.

Just a typical day.

 

* * *

 

When Sherlock awoke, the first thing he realized was that he was strapped down to an uncomfortable bed. He tried to sit up, but there was a thick strap going right across his chest and another over his stomach. They were on his thighs and his calves, too, and his wrists were bound to the rails of the bed. The final strap went across his forehead, pressing his head down into the pillow and completely limiting his mobility.

He could hear a machine beeping beside his head. The room was darkened, but there were windows that had the curtains drawn over them, a counter with a sink, cotton swabs, and paper towels. The door was open, bright yellow light shining into his room, and he could hear voices outside.

‘Okay, what about Leslie? Have you moved her back into her room for the night?’

‘Yeah, I just did that a little while ago. Now, what about Gregson? He’s supposed to get the Cymbalta, still? Or did Doctor Stamford decide to move him to the Prozac?’

‘No, you’re thinking of Eric. See, it says right here in his chart to keep him on the Cymbalta. Eric is staring on the Prozac, twenty milligrams for now. He’ll probably move up to forty in a week or two.’

‘Christ, I completely missed that. Okay, well, that’s everyone, right? We just need to have them all up for group tomorrow.’

Sherlock recognized what was being spoken about. He was in a hospital. A _mental_ hospital that no doubt also acted as a rehabilitation clinic, a detox centre. He couldn’t remember being brought here…when had it happened? An hour ago? A day?

His head felt like it was stuffed with cotton. His thoughts were sluggish and his mouth dry. He struggled against his restraints but only succeeded in scratching the rough material against his skin (which wasn’t all that unpleasant, seeing as how his flesh was itching like mad, as if there were tiny insects crawling all over his arms and legs).

Not only was he trapped in a hospital, but he was trapped in a bed. He was trapped inside of his own _mind._ His _sober,_ frightened mind. The thoughts were already creeping in, how long it had been since the room had last been dusted, what Mycroft was doing, who his doctor was, how long he was going to be here, how he was going to escape—he would need blueprints, first; although this was his first time actually being admitted (forcibly) into a mental institution, Sherlock knew well enough that Mycroft wouldn’t have taken somewhere where he could simply walk out of it.

That was why he was restrained. It was why they would _keep_ him restrained. They would leave him in this room with absolutely no stimulation besides what filtered in accidentally through the open door; they would force him to eat through a tube, they would keep him locked up like a bloody prisoner.

That was the thought that put him over the edge.

It was the thought that made him scream.


	3. Chapter 3

_“WATSON!”_

As he did every morning, John jerked awake to the sound of his name being shouted. It was always because he had been dreaming about his time in Afghanistan, although sometimes one of the nurses or orderlies was also knocking on his door and calling for him ever so innocent. ‘Doctor Watson? Are you all right, Doctor Watson?’

Fortunately, he woke to silence this morning, besides the sound of his blood pounding deep in his ears and his own breaths, coming as pants. He placed his hand over his chest to try and steady himself. He was in his office. He was in _England_ , in Europe. Bloody hell, he needed to get himself under control; sooner than later, too, because people were surely starting to wonder what his problem was.

It was six o’clock. Third shift would be getting off soon and the glum, weary faces of those coming in at seven AM would be replacing them. John was one of them. Gripping his cane tightly in his hand, he lifted himself off the floor. He kicked his sleeping bag into a tight bundle and stuffed it beneath the leather armchair in the corner of the room. The chair was there for his patients to sit in, vent to him about all their innermost thoughts, problems, and fears.

That was what it was _supposed_ to be used for. Patients didn’t often come into John’s office. He preferred to speak with them outside in the courtyard or in the canteen, or even in their rooms if they were alone at the time. If they came into his office and spent more than just a few minutes in there, gave it more than a few cursory glances, they could very easily notice that he actually _lived_ in it. The questions would start, followed by the concern, and then the doubt.

_‘How am I supposed to get better when my doctor himself is sick?’_

The question was perfectly valid, but it wasn’t one John wanted to answer. He didn’t _have_ an answer. What was he supposed to say to them? ‘I have all the practical knowledge, and I can tell you over and over again what you need to do and how you need to think.’

‘Why haven’t you done it, Doctor Watson?’

‘I have.’

‘Then why are you still like you are?’

‘Because it didn’t work.’

‘Then how do you know it’ll work for me?’

‘I don’t.’

‘Then why should I bother?’

‘You shouldn’t.’

No. That wouldn’t go over well at all.

It was truly amazing how well people could act when they needed to. It didn’t happen in every situation in their lives; some people were terrible liars, whereas others lied pathologically and those around them were none the wiser. Growing up, John had been a terrible liar. If his mother or father told him to do something (normally it was a chore or an errand, something that they knew they needed to do but were too drunk to handle) and he lied about having done it, they knew just from looking at him. His cheeks turned red and he couldn’t make eye contact; he was _so_ easy to see through. Hell, he hadn’t even been able to play a passable Peter Pan in his Year 4 school play because he felt like a bloody imposter.

Harry, on the other hand, had been a wonderful liar. She could lie straight through her teeth and nobody knew. Nobody but John, anyway, who became distrustful of her at a very early age. He knew that everything coming out of her mouth was a lie, from where she’d been all day (certainly _not_ at school) to the boy she claimed to be dating. John knew it wasn’t true; he had caught Harry on her bed making out with her very best, very _female_ best friend when she was thirteen and he was nine.

She had told him she’d kill him if he told anyone. That was the first thing she said that John had believed.

John was much better at lying, now. When asked by the staff or his patients how his weekend was, he would smile and tell them that it was fine, that he had stayed busy. When they asked him if he had any plans for the upcoming holiday, he told them that he was going to spend it with his family. For a man who considered his patients and coworkers his family, it wasn’t a lie.

 John walked over to his desk and bent down with a strained grunt. His leg ached from sleeping on the floor, but he pulled up his duffle bag into his chair and got out a bottle of oxycodone and swallowed one of the tablets dry. The staff was supposed to keep their medications locked away, where there was no risk of the patients having access to them, but John didn’t want anyone to know what he was taking, considering that everybody but him believed the pain in his leg was only psychosomatic. The entire process as a whole was shady, what with employees having to reveal their medical conditions, but Lakeside was a shady place. Taking bribes, pawning patients off to other doctors, letting doctors with similar or the exact same conditions as the patients _treat_ the patients…

It was Friday. That meant nothing to John, seeing as how he lived at the center and worked seven days out of the week either way. He was digging around in his bag for clean clothes to wear; everything he felt he would need at Lakeside had been tucked away into the duffle bag. He decided on a pair of light khaki trousers and a blue and white striped button up. He slipped the clothes into his messenger bag, where he kept his patient files, and then combed his fingers through his hair. He had to walk to the staff locker room on the other end of the wing to use the showers and he didn’t want people to see him in his wrinkled clothes and mussed-up hair.

Once he was sure that his clothes were hidden inside his bag, John stuffed the duffle back beneath his desk and hobbled out of his office, locking the door behind him. The cleaners were in there on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so on those days John made sure to stuff his bags away in the large filing cabinet in the corner of the room. So far, nobody had found out. They never bothered him at night or on the weekends, just because, most weeks, he wasn’t _actually_ supposed to be there. He was meant to work the first weekend of each month and no others; instead, he was there all day, every day.

Nobody had confronted him about it. Either the Board didn’t know or they just didn’t care. Neither would have surprised him.

By the time John made it into the locker room, his fingers were gripping his cane so hard he thought he would snap it in half. His leg was _screaming,_ a fiery pain that completely enveloped it from his thigh to his toes. John dropped his bag down on the bench and then turned the water on so it could be heating up. As soon as the water started to spray from the showerhead, John leaned against the wall. His knees gave out from under him and he slid down, right onto is arse. His cane clattered away from him and, if he’d had the strength in his leg, he would have kicked it, the bloody thing.

 The pain was even making his breathing difficult. He had started to pant; he clenched his eyes shut but he was still seeing white. John slid his hand up into his hair and clenched it. He bit his lip and grunted, fighting off the urge to actually _whimper_. _It’s in your head, old man_ , he told himself, even though he knew it was pointless to do so because he didn’t even believe it. _It’s in your head. That’s what everyone’s telling you, yeah? It’s not_ real _._

The mantra repeated itself over and over in John’s head. Eventually, he even started to mutter it aloud.

The pain didn’t stop.

It didn’t even ease up.

 

* * *

 

 

With his hair still damp from the shower, John made his way back to his office and stuffed away his dirty clothes. He would do his laundry over the weekend, sneak in during the housekeeping’s shift change. There was a definitive method to his madness in that he knew the schedules of the maintenance, housekeeping, food service, and clerical staff, in addition to the doctors and nurses and other medical personnel, just he could avoid anyone finding out about the shitty way he lived.

_Penance, Watson._

The oxycodone had started to kick in while he had been in the shower. That, combined with the relief in his muscles from the warm water, had been almost enough to bring a smile to his face. Almost. It was still early, a quarter to seven, and John sat down at his desk to look over his patient files. His computer loaded up and he logged in. The homepage of his browser was his work email account, and the first message made him frown.

 

**From: M. Holmes**

**To: Watson, John <[jwatson@lakesiderh.com](mailto:jwatson@lakesiderh.com)>**

**Do not disappoint me, Dr. Watson.**

**M. Holmes**

The email was simple. Six words and a signature. Nothing to be up in arms about. Despite this, John couldn’t help but notice that his throat felt a little tighter, his mouth a little dryer, and his heart was beating quicker. He could hear it thumping away inside his ears, and yet again he wondered what Mycroft Holmes knew. Or if he knew anything at all about what had happened. The email seemed ominous, but it could also have been meant innocently. Mycroft was worried about his brother; it was obvious. It was either a threat, or it was a request.

John deleted it before he could decide which.

 

* * *

 

 

Sherlock had never before experienced feeling blisteringly hot and freezing cold at the same time. He had heard people—addicts—talk about the sensation, but it wasn’t something he really believed. He assumed that they were weak when they winged about it; everybody was compared to him, so why should this matter be any different?

He was still lying in bed, strapped down to it. Sometime during the night he had pissed himself, either that or somebody had spilled a urine-smelling liquid all over his lap. The former was more likely…he couldn’t _remember_ pissing himself, but it wouldn’t be the first time it had happened.

Everything hurt. It sounded dramatic even in his own head, but it was true. Each and every one of his muscles was aching, even the most obscure, tiny ones. No matter how many times he tried to swallow, he couldn’t do it without feeling like his tongue was going down his throat. He was _parched_. It was probably because he was sweating so much; dehydration was likely.

The room was freezing cold. Or maybe it was just him? Sherlock couldn’t tell, and really, it didn’t matter. He wanted another blanket, even though he knew it would make him sweat even more. He tried to turn his head, but the damn strap was still tight over his forehead. He opened his eyes, trying to look to his left and his right. Nothing. Everything was blurry and he couldn’t even keep his eyes open; after only a second of his lids being parted, they fell shut once more.

“Mr. Holmes.”

Had someone just said his name? Sherlock felt like he had cotton balls stuffed deep inside his ears, either that or he was underwater. Over the sound of his heartbeat and rattling breaths, he couldn’t be sure whether what he had heard was real or not, not unless—

“Mr. Holmes, I’m your supervising psychiatrist, Doctor Watson. How are you feeling?”

He wasn’t actually being asked that, was he? How could anyone be so _stupid_ to ask him how he was feeling? What, was it not obvious from his body being covered in sweat yet still shivering? His heart was racing and he could feel it pulsing in his ears, wrists, throat, and temples. His tongue felt like it was swollen so large that it was too big for his mouth, and his lips were scratchy against one another.

“Take,” Sherlock began, the single word coming out hoarse and nearly undecipherable, “take—take one g-good look at me and…y-you tell _me_ how I’m f-f…feeling, _Doctor_.”

The response was immediate. No doubt Doctor Watson had been through this before, numerous times.

“Humiliated. Betrayed. Ashamed. Trapped. And, of course, that’s completely ignoring the physical parts of withdrawal. I don’t envy you, Mr. Holmes, I’ll say that much.”

The voice was closer this time, but still quite a way’s from Sherlock’s bed, he could tell. This ‘Doctor Watson’ character was staying closer to the door than he was to his patient. Why would that be? Was he frightened? What did he have to be frightened of? Sherlock was strapped down entirely; there was nothing he could do except—

Ah. That was it, then.

Sherlock tried once more to open his eyes. Just like before, his vison was cloudy, and his eyes fell shut again almost immediately. He could see nothing useful. Watson had to be afraid of getting too close to him for fear that Sherlock would see something about him that he was trying to keep hidden. It was the only possible explanation. The only thing Sherlock had been able to make out was that Watson was short, and he _may_ have been using a cane or a walker; he’d had something silver in his hand. So he was short and had a cane…neither of those were embarrassing secrets. Sherlock couldn’t do anything clever with those.

As it turned out, it didn’t matter. Just opening and closing his eyes had proved to be exhausting. A heavy weight settled on Sherlock’s chest, gradually drifting up its neck and to his head, and he was deep in sleep once again within seconds.

 

* * *

 

Sherlock falling asleep was, John felt, a gift from God that he didn’t even deserve. He limped towards his newest patient’s bed, keeping the clicking of his cane as soft as possible. Before doing anything else, he set the manila folder that was Sherlock Holmes’s file down on the bed beside the sleeping man. He removed the stethoscope from his neck and listened to Sherlock’s heartbeat and, after gently pushing him up halfway onto his side, lungs. His lungs were crackling and his heartbeat was fast, erratic. Neither surprised John.

The nurse—Jo Brinkman—came in with a sphygmomanometer. She handed it to John and he strapped the cuff around Sherlock’s upper arm, then pressed the bell of his stethoscope against his patient’s inner elbow, pumping the cuff up with air before he gradually released it and listened.

“Get another IV started,” John told Jo, jotting down Sherlock’s vitals with his right hand as he stuck an ear thermometer in Sherlock’s auditory canal. It only took a few seconds to beep, signaling that it was finished with the reading. 39 degrees, yet another thing he had expected.

“Saline, Doctor?”

“He’s already got the saline. Give him another bag of it. In the new IV, amantadine. Just a low-dose for now.”

“Ten?”

“No, no, not that low. Twenty.”

John reached for Sherlock’s file and slipped it back inside his bag. He had the files of ten other patients in it, and then he would have to go back to his office and swap them out for ten more, visit those patients, and then go to his office for a third time and get the third round of charts. Christ. No other doctors had to do this amount of work.

_You deserve it. Work yourself into the ground, Watson. Maybe then you’ll stop feeling guilty. What you did was awful, absolutely deplorable, but you can make up for it. Save a life. Save a dozen lives, a hundred. Maybe you’ll at least scratch the surface._

John walked towards the door. He paused and turned to look back at Sherlock and the nurse, who was fiddling with his IV.

“Give him another blanket, too. And for God’s sake, get the HCA in here and have her clean him up and give him a fresh gown and sheets. He’ll be miserable enough without lying in his own piss.”


End file.
